Dean Rethinks Public-Policy Needs Albert Carnesale, New Dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Sees Three 'Frontiers of Knowledge'

Article excerpt

THE John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
cuts a wide swath in the public-policy arena. Its faculty and
alumni not only advise governments but, at times, run them.

By any criteria, the school exerts tremendous influence. For
instance, it is not unreasonable to speculate that former Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev could turn up as a lecturer someday.

So when the school's new dean, Albert Carnesale, says that
education policy, health-care issues, and environmental questions
are "frontiers of knowledge so important" that he "cannot imagine
the Kennedy School not focusing much attention and energy on them,"
he is reacting not only to public-policy concerns, but charting a
course of study aimed at their solution.

"Leadership can take place at many levels," he said in an
interview in his office, referring both to his own approach to
management and to the leadership role of the Kennedy School.

"The simplistic notion of 'leaders' and 'followers' does not
work very well. Sometimes just clearly defining the problem for an
organization or society" is leadership, he says. "Leaders have to
be the ones who help the organization, and the others with whom
they are working, share a vision of what it is they're trying
collectively to do."

Mr. Carnesale is an expert on American foreign policy and
international security, technological change, and policies
associated with nuclear weapons and arms control (he served on the
United States delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in
1970-72). He holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering and joined
the Harvard faculty in 1974. He was appointed in November by
Harvard's new president, Neil L. Rudenstine.

Public officials "are always making decisions of
interpretation," he says. "They are always making decisions of
extrapolation. They are always applying {policy} to particular
cases that don't quite fit the generalization."

Since it is the nature of public policy to operate within a
broad guideline, and for personnel in an organization to implement
policy, such personnel also make policy, he avers.

The critical concept for students is to recognize that
public-policy leadership exists at many more levels than they might
imagine. Students must also understand how news media influence
communication with constituencies. This is as much a leadership
issue as it is a management issue, he says.

How does this affect curriculum and research at the Kennedy
School?

For starters, the "biggest change is much more comparative
analysis, much more of an examination of how others address these
problems {in other countries}. …